From what I have learned, and in my opinion, networking falls into two categories:

*

The networking you do in order to increase your audience

*

The networking you do in order to link with industry professionals

To me, they are inextricably linked – they are both important – and both need to be approached with the same level of care and attention.

We all know networking is important – the big question a lot of us face is: HOW do we network? I like to treat networking as I do making new friends: I invite people into a conversation by asking them a question. I take an interest in them first. Networking is all about building relationships.

How you do this is very much up to you, but one thing holds true no matter what approach you adopt: people will not give you something unless you first show an interest in them. Asking for support simply does not crack it – unless you have already established strong bonds with those people. Learning how to network from a place of really wanting to connect with people, rather than from a place of neediness will totally transform your results.

Successful networking – or networking etiquette is quite simply about being a nice person and not spamming. Treat people the way that you would like to be treated yourself. Do you enjoy receiving long messages from strangers, demanding that you ‘check out their amazing work’? Neither do I.

Keeping in regular contact with your audience by way of newsletters is the perfect way to nourish your relationships once you have made the connection. Personally, I send out newsletters twice a month. To me this feels enough to stay pleasantly present, without having a spammy presence.

Send newsletters out by way of a mailing list service provider such as Mailer Lite or Mail Chimp. Never send out newsletters without a mailing list service provider – Google will flag your email address as a spammer.

Right now, I live in the middle of nowhere, so getting to any sort of networking event is pretty much impossible, but that’s ok because with the internet, the world is literally my oyster.

I love using Twitter to grow my audience and form new connections with people who I think would be interested in my output. I treat it as I would a real-life conversation. I start by introducing yourself: “Hello! Thank you so much for following me, I’m Liz, an electronic music artist, creative coach and lover of connections. I’ve formed a lot of beautiful friendships through music. May I initiate a potential friendship with you by asking what’s your favourite music to listen to?”

A conversation then often follows during which a connection is made and interest is piqued. Once I feel it is appropriate, I then tell the person that I’d love to send them a link to download some tracks for free. And I ask if they’d be interested. If they say yes, I thank them and ask which email address I can send it to. Thank people – always, always thank people – whether it’s for their time or their email addresses.

You might be asking how you get people to follow you in the first place. Good question! The answer is simple: find popular and active people out there, with a similar output to you – and follow their followers. I follow the followers of music artists who have a similar sound to me and who are popular and active on Twitter. When people follow you back, send them a message and initiate a conversation!

When someone follows you back, pop to their profile and if you see something that resonates with you, retweet it. You’re showing an interest in them and what they have to say – and that does good things for building the foundations of the relationship you are wishing to establish with this person.

Subscribe to newsletters and updates that are in line with your message and interest – and use these as material to curate interest...